Eclipse Tanks

[newman187]

Hello all, I'm purchasing a 29 gallon delux Eclipse system from a guy I work with to setup in my office, It will be a planted tank of course, but can you guys share some infor with me about the tank?

I guess my questions are does the filtration work well, is the lighting that it comes with acceptable to grow plants in?

I'm buying this for $125.00 and it has a stand and everything, but i'm mostly interested in finding out if it works well for a planted tank.

I have a 50 gallon planted tank at home and I will be taking plants from that to put in the new tank, I plan on having the same substrate (Seachem Flourite), and want to keep plants such as swords, red lugwidia, vals, dwarf lillies, barclaya, narrow leaf chain sword and the like.

Will this tank be ok for that?

 

[derajer]

The latest version of the eclipse 29 comes with 2 24" flourescent bulbs so you're going to have about 40 watts of T8 light, you'll probably have to replace both bulbs with 5000K-6500K bulbs, but you should be able to do some decent water gardening. I wouldn't think that you want fast growing plants at work anyway. As for the filters, they're biowheel filters so they're fairly decent

 

[newman187]

Yes, I agree with the fast growing plants, I'll have a DIY co2 system.

I'm not sure how old the tank is, maybe 3-4 years old so i'm not sure what type of lights are in it, and i'm not even sure if its the 29 gallon or the 25 gallon.

What type of plants should I get that are not fast growing then?

 

[derajer]

Anubias, java fern, and java moss are probably some of the best slow growers. They're also extremely tough so they can take a lot abuse, which they may get at work. The problem with most slow growers is height, it's really hard to find a good background plant that grow slowly. One solution to that problem is to use different level of rock and bogwood to grow the previously mentioned plants on. All of these plants latch onto wood and rock really well so they work well for a multi level tank

 

[ozziegt]

Hygro might be a good background plant, but I don't know how tall it gets. 40 watts is 1.4 wpl so you can maybe even try a couple moderate light plants to see how they do.

 

[Balloon Fish]

hygro grows really quickly, maybe some really tall species of anubias or some swords or vals or aponogetons but those grow really quickly... but at 1.4wpg a tall anubias would probably be your best bet for a slow growing plant. maybe you could check out plantgeek.net for some good ideas good luck on the tank

 

[ozziegt]

My hygro hasn't been growing quickly...it's quite slow actually. I have an 8w lamp in my 5g tank...I dose it every week with Seachem Flourish...but with CO2 it might grow a lot faster. I think it might depend on the size of the tank too...I get a not of new leaves but the distance between the leaves is very short, while maybe in a tank where the plant is closer to the bottom the leaves might be farther apart and the plant might grow faster.

 

[Balloon Fish]

usually smaller tanks need more lighting so yours is like a super low lighted tank and if provided a good amount of ferts then hygro is a really really fast growing plant...

 

[Timbo]

Hopefully yours will come with 2 X 4ft tubes or similar. As you don't know the age go to your aquarist and purchase 2 replacements. Tell him you want good fish colours and plant growth, (As you already have a tank at home you should know a good aquarist. Fast growing plants are good as they utilise the waste products from the fish. And a pair of scissors will keep them tidy.

 

[newman187]

Well this is not a regular tank, it measures approximatly 24" long, 21" high, and 12" deep, it has the hood with the built in biowheel, the tubes are like 17" long and are t8.